Privacy and Public Goods: Vitalik Buterin & Roger Dingledine - Buenos Aires 2025
Fri, Jan 2, 2026, 12:00 AM
Privacy & Public Goods: Vitalik Buterin and Roger Dingledine compare how Ethereum and Tor approach privacy: technically, culturally, and in the real world. They trace the arc from early “privacy-first” digital cash to today’s ZK-driven renaissance, arguing that usable privacy needs to become default at the wallet layer while still grappling with hard tradeoffs around transparency, regulation, and application design. The conversation also digs into trust and integrity in crypto, the gap between free-software altruism and token incentives, and why reliability—and real-world community—matters more than hype when you’re building tools people depend on. Speakers: Vitalik Buterin (Ethereum Foundation), Roger Dingledine (Tor Project) This session was part of the 14th edition of Funding the Commons, held November 19, 2025, at Fundación Beethoven in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Learn more at https://www.fundingthecommons.io
Speakers
Roger is co-founder and original developer of the Tor Project, a nonprofit that develops free and open source software to protect people from tracking, censorship, and surveillance online. Roger works with journalists and activists on many continents to help them understand and defend against the threats they face, and he is a prominent researcher in the online anonymity field. EFF picked him for a Pioneer Award, and Foreign Policy magazine chose him as one of its top 100 global thinkers.
Ethereum Foundation
Vitalik Buterin is the co-founder of Ethereum, a researcher at the Ethereum Foundation, and an entrepreneur.